Abelo : bee Afriko : Africa Amiko : friend Batali : fighting Besto : animal Biero : beer Birdo : bird Cigaredo : cigarette Cirklo : circle Danci : dancing Dento : tooth Dio : god El : out of Familio : family Filo : son Griza : gray Horo : hour Insekto : insect Julio : july Kanado : Canada Mondo : world Ni : us Nomo : name Okulo : eye Onklo : uncle Paco : peace Post : after Pura : clean Ridi : laughing Sabato : Sunday Societo : society Tegmento : roof Trajno : train Universitato : university Varma : hot Vento : wind Zoologio : zoology
"C^" will represent the Esperanto letter C marked with a circumflex. "G^" will represent the Esperanto letter G marked with a circumflex. "H^" will represent the Esperanto letter H marked with a circumflex. "J^" will represent the Esperanto letter J marked with a circumflex. "S^" will represent the Esperanto letter S marked with a circumflex. "U^" will represent the the Esperanto letter U marked with a breve.
"hundo" "dog, a dog" "la hundo" "the dog" "leono" "lion, a lion"
"La leono mordas." "The lion bites." "La leonoj mordas." "The lions bite." "La leono mordas hundon." "The lion bites a dog." "La leono mordas hundojn." "The lion bites dogs." "La hundoj mordas leonojn en la g^angalo." "The dogs bite lions in the jungle."
"la bruna hundo" "the brown dog" "la brunaj hundoj" "the brown dogs" "La leono mordas la brunajn hundojn." "The lion bites the brown dogs."
"la bruna hundo" "the brown dog" "la pli brunaj hundoj" "the browner dogs" "La hundo estas pli bruna ol la leono." "The dog is browner than the lion." "la plej bruna hundo" "the brownest dog"
"unu" "one" "sep" "seven" "du" "two" "ok" "eight" "tri" "three" "nau^" "nine" "kvar" "four" "dek" "ten" "kvin" "five" "cent" "hundred" "ses" "six" "mil" "thousand"
"dek unu" "11" "dek-unua" "11th" "dudek tri" "23" "mil nau^cent okdek kvar" "1984"
"mi" "me" "s^i" "she" "ni" "we" "vi" "you" "li" "he" "ili" "they" "g^i" "it"
"mia" "my" "mia hundo" "my dog" "miaj hundoj" "my dogs" "La leono mordis miajn hundojn!" "The lion bit my dogs!"
Suffix Tense Example ------- ---------- --------------------------------------- "-i" infinitve "mordi" "to bite" "-as" present "Mi mordas." "I bite." "-is" past "Mi mordis lin." "I bit him." "-os" future "Mi mordos lin." "I will bite him." "-us" conditional "Mi mordus lin." "I would bite him." "-u" imperative "Mordu lin!" "Bite him!"
Suffix Participle Example -------- ----------------- ---------------------------------------------- "-ant" active present "la falanta stelo" "the falling star" "-int" active preterite "la falinta soldato" "the fallen soldier" "-ont" active future "knabo estas falonta" "a boy is about to fall" "-at" passive present "s^telata biero" "a beer being stolen" "-it" passive preterite "s^telita biero" "a stolen beer" "-ot" passive future "s^telota biero" "a beer about to be stolen"
"rapida viro" "a quick man" "La viro kuras rapide." "The man runs quickly." "La hundo kuras pli rapide ol la viro." "The dog runs more quickly than the man." "La leono kuras plej rapide." "The lion runs the most quickly."
"La hundoj mordas la leonon kum siaj dentoj." "The dogs bite the lion with their teeth."
"RAdo" "a wheel" "familIo" "a family" "plenkresKULo" "an adult"
"c^ambro" "a room" "mang^i" "to eat" "mang^oc^ambro" "a dining room" The word "room" comes last, because a dining room is a room, not something you eat.
"ne" "no" "nenio" "nothing" "Ne mi havas la hundon." "I do not have the dog." "Mi havas nenion." "I have nothing" "Ne mi havas nenion!" INCORRECT! This is a double negative!
"Neniom monoj saltas sur la lito." "No more monkeys jumping on the bed." "La infano saltas sur la liton." "The child jumps onto the bed."
"chocolat-" "c^okolad-" "chocolatey" "c^okolada"
"la hundo" "the dog" "l' hund'" "the dog"
A B C Ĉ D E F G Ĝ H Ĥ I J Ĵ K L M N O P R S Ŝ T U Ŭ V Z a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z
Ĉ : Ĉ ĉ : ĉ Ĝ : Ĝ ĝ : ĝ Ĥ : Ĥ ĥ : ĥ Ĵ : Ĵ ĵ : ĵ Ŝ : Ŝ ŝ : ŝ Ŭ : Ŭ ŭ : ŭ
Personally, I have not bothered to learn Esperanto, mostly because while it's "marketed" as a beautiful and good-sounding language, it's not. And need for weird characters or the common ASCIIzation involving x's clearly doesn't make it any "cooler". Plus, if you need an "universal language", English is pretty commonly understood around the world.
Also, people who have studied Esperanto report that the "16 rules" are definitely not enough to learn all of the subtleties of the language.
An interesting factoid:
In America, [Esperanto's] most widespread application has been in wargames; when rehearsing European battles, the US Army used to designate Esperanto as the official language of the Aggressor Force. - Wired Magazine, August 1996
In America, [Esperanto's] most widespread application has been in wargames; when rehearsing European battles, the US Army used to designate Esperanto as the official language of the Aggressor Force.
- Wired Magazine, August 1996
Quite of an achievement from a language designed to promote world peace =)
With the publication of the pamphlet 'Lingvo Internacia' in 1887, Esperanto is born. L.L. Zamenhof (1859-1917) introduces, with this pamflet, his plan for a simple, international language, intended to bring people and nations together. The grammar is strictly systematic, 60 percent of the vocabulary is derived from Roman languages. Zamenhof made his design during his childhood years in Bailystok, a place troubled with conflicts between Polish, German, Russian and Jewish populations.
In 1905 the first world congress is held. Three years later Universala Esperanto-Asocio is founded
In 1954 the language is recognised as such by UNESCO.
In 1993 Esperanto is recognised by the PEN-club
It is unknown how many Esperantists there are worldwide, numbers vary from half a million people to three million people.
Pronunciation of Esperanto is extremely easy, there are no exceptions.
Six letters have circumflexes over them. To denote this, I will place a caret before that letter.
Esperanto letter - English example A - father, never as is ate, man, or cat B - baby C - hats, never as in cat ^C - chip D - do E - the sound of eight, the length of met, never as in meet or where and never silent F - fun, never as in of G - good, never as in George ^G - George H - hat ^H - no English equivalent, but like a strong H as in German ach, Scottish loch, or Russian Mikhail I - the sound of meet, the length of bit, never as in bite J - young, never as in jump (think German) ^J - azure (think French) K - kiss, never silent L - leap, as opposed to bell (this L has a darker sound) M - met N - net O - vote, never as in bottom or ought P - pet R - no English equivalent, but similar to a Spanish R as in areba* S - soon, never as in beds or sure ^S - bush T - top U - the sound of boot, the length of put, never as in but or cute ^U - week V - van Z - zoo
Do your best to pronounce p, t, and k without a puff of air, but don't worry if you have trouble doing this, it is not crucial.
Pairs: NG - finger, never as in singer or ingest AJ - bide EJ - eight OJ - oil UJ - week, ruin, or better yet, to yield or boo-yeah A^U - how
All juxtapositions of vowels, such as IE, must be pronounced as two seperate sounds, e.g. kie is pronounced "key-ay", never "kee".
ER, IR, and UR should never be pronounced as English her, girl, or spur. Both the vowel and the R should be distinct sounds.
You might find the letter X in some texts. This is used to denote that the preceding letter should have a circumflex over it, as I did with the carets. Some older texts use the letter H for this same purpose (in keeping with western tradition); this is clearly the wrong thing. Please do not use this method!
* Esperanto requires a tap or flap rather than a Spanish trill. A lot of Americans think thay can't do this, but most do all the time: say the word "butter" somewhat quickly. If it comes out like "buddr", then the "ddr" is probably the sound you want for the Esperanto R. If it comes out like "butt-err", then congratulations, you pronounce English well!
Thanks to many helpful noders pointing out that E2 doesn't support tables, and for not downvoting me while I was sleeping! (I wrote the original at 12:30 at night, for lack of anything better to do!) Thanks also to Gritchka for some corrections on the examples I was using.
This article is somewhat philosophical and is intended as a kind of preface to the miscellaneous comments and articles I found in this node.
Esperanto is a remarkable language invented in 1887 by Dr Ludowic Zamenhof, of Poland. At a time when Poland was carved up among Russia, Germany, and Austria, people of many nationalities lived in the country. In addition to Poles, there were large numbers of Russians and Germans, as well as a large Jewish community, to which Zamenhof belonged. The different communities had little enough love for each other.
Most people today consider Zamenhof to have been a dreamy utopian who believed that if everybody in the world spoke the same language, all wars would cease and the world would become a Garden of Eden. Such a cynical view of Zamenhof does not do him justice: he was an educated man who was well aware that language differences play only a small part in the problems faced by the world. But he reasoned that solving communication problems would be a good - even necessary - first step to solving much larger problems later on.
What Zamenhof did was to take words - which he called roots - which are common to as many European languages as possible, make regular forms for the roots, and fit them all within a regular grammatical framework. For example, he made FRATO the word for "brother"; most European languages have a similar word, and even English has such recognizably related words as fraternal and fraternity. Zamenhof decided that all nouns should end in -O, all adjectives in -A, all adverbs in -E, and all infinitives in -I. The plural form is made by adding -J; and -N is added to the noun when it is the object of the sentence. Adjectives have to agree with nouns in case in number - i.e., if a noun has -N or -J added, any adjectives that precede it must also have -N or -J added.
One of the most brilliant of Zamenhof's ideas was to make a small vocabulary, which could be expanded almost indefinitely with prefixes and suffixes. The prefixes and suffixes would be defined exactly and could be used in all situations as required (which is quite unlike the case with English : in English we can, for example, add PRE- to words like arrange to make pre-arrange, but we never say pre-warn - it has to be fore-warn. Esperanto prefixes and suffixes, by contrast, must be absolutely regular). For example, Esperanto has no word for "mother"; we just add the female suffix -IN- to the word for "parent". The same suffix can be added to any word to denote the female sex. By using a large number of prefixes and suffixes, a small basic vocabulary (of around 2000 words) can be expanded almost without limit. I learned Esperanto about 20 years ago, and I have never regretted it.
© David Cannon.
One of the world's more interesting examples of a market failure is the general inability of Esperanto to secure its intended role as a universal second language. If a great many people spoke Esperanto, it would be reasonably worthwhile to devote one's time to learning it. Knowing that there was even a 30% chance that a random person encountered in Estonia or Italy or Japan would speak it, the energetic traveller or businessperson would have a pretty good incentive to learn at least a bit. If few people do, conversely, it is not worth anyone's time. This is what economists call a network effect: having a fax machine when nobody else does is not very useful. Likewise, having a telephone or internet connection. The more people subscribe to any such network, the more valuable the network becomes to everyone. Such networks tend to explode in usage once they cross a critical threshold of popularity. Since the development of a base of speakers generally depends on such individual choices, it remains perpetually stuck at a low level of usage.
The idea of an invented universal second language is appealing for many reasons. While English has certainly emerged as a world language, it is not without significant cultural baggage. The forces that spread English - from the British empire to American ascendancy and the dominance of English cultural and technological materials - are inevitably connected with structures of dominance and submission in the world. While Esperanto does borrow from other languages, it seems sensible to say that it is free of at least a good portion of this kind of baggage.
Another serious issue related to second languages is how quickly they shrivel when not used. Much as many Canadians who learned the language as children would like to avoid forgetting French, it is very hard to maintain in the absence of a need to use it. When in an environment where one is virtually never exposed to the language, such as on Canada's west coast, one's knowledge fades quickly indeed. If everyone spoke one common language, it is quite likely that each person would be exposed to it often enough to gain and maintain facility in its use.
The message is simple, then: rest of the world, please learn Esperanto. Once two billion or so of you have, I will set upon the task myself.
This node has been modified from a post on my blog, at: http://www.sindark.com/2006/09/03/on-esperanto/
Es`pe*ran"to (?), n.
An artificial language, intended to be universal, devised by Dr. Zamenhof, a Russian, who adopted the pseudonym "Dr. Esperanto" in publishing his first pamphlet regarding it in 1887. The vocabulary is very largely based upon words common to the chief European languages, and sounds peculiar to any one language are eliminated. The spelling is phonetic, and the accent (stress) is always on the penult. -- Es`pe*ran"tist (#), n.
© Webster 1913
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